Manu Bhaker reaches final, targets her third Olympic medal today

The walk from the shooting range to Athletes Village lasts exactly 15 minutes. Jaspal Rana, the former world champion who is Manu Bhaker’s coach, calls it a therapeutic walk. During this magical week for her, that’s all it has taken Manu to declutter her mind, refocus on the next task, pore over the imperfections, and strategise for the next match.

Once Rana drops her “home”, there is no shooting talk.

This zero-fuss approach, Rana said, is one of the factors that has contributed to Manu landing on the doorstep of a feat previously unthinkable in Indian sport: a hat-trick of Olympic medals. At one Games.

With another sublime qualifying round on Friday, Manu qualified for her third final of the Paris Olympics. She will turn up at the Chateauroux shooting range for one last time on Manu Bhaker reaches final, targets her third Olympic medal today

Saturday to attempt a feat that, if achieved, would undoubtedly elevate her to the status of being one of India’s most successful — if not the most successful — Olympians.

Manu Bhaker of India adjusts her eyepiece. (Reuters)

In an event she considers her pet, the 25m pistol, Manu reached the final after finishing second in a qualification field of 40, scoring a total of 590. She will be the only Indian in the fray after Asian Games medallist Esha Singh, competing in her debut Olympics, finished 18th. Only the top eight shooters qualify for the medal round. Hungary’s Veronika Major topped the qualification, which closed at 585, with a score of 592.

If the first final for Manu was about rectifying her mistakes at the Tokyo Olympics, the third would be to forever etch her name in the history books. No Indian athlete has ever won three Olympic medals in individual events.

Wrestler Sushil Kumar (bronze at Beijing Olympics, silver at London) and P V Sindhu (silver in Rio, bronze in Tokyo) are the only two athletes who have multiple Olympic medals in individual events since India’s independence. Sindhu’s quest for a three-peat ended with a surrender to China’s He Bingjiao on Thursday, a day that saw two of India’s biggest medal hopes — badminton doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, and boxing star Nikhat Zareen — suffer a twin blow.

If not for shooters — rather, if not for Manu — the Games so far, from an Indian point of view, would have been abysmal. The three Indian medals — all bronze — have all come from shooting, with Manu involved in two of them.

Manu Bhaker loves to have this food (Source: Manu Bhaker/AP)

An extraordinary feat for an athlete who came to Paris with the sole intention of burying the ghosts of Tokyo. By winning two bronze medals, she has already done that, and much more. Now, the 22-year-old has a chance to step further and set a new benchmark for India at the Olympics — like how Abhinav Bindra and Neeraj Chopra raised the aspiration levels of Indian athletes.

A remarkable feature of Manu’s purple patch has been her approach on the range, showing composure and maturity that belies her young age. She didn’t allow her nerves to get the better of her before her first final last Sunday, where she won the bronze in the 10m air pistol.

Manu stayed back at the range for longer than usual that afternoon, completing her media engagements, attending calls from India — including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and making it a point to smile, shake hands and pose for photos with the people who made a beeline at the venue.

When she returned to the range the next day, Manu looked hungrier than before, rather than being distracted, and went back with another medal.

Manu Bhaker’s exceptional shooting performance stems from multiple sources. (Source: REUTERS)

On Friday, she gave the vibe that the last few days were normal in the life of an athlete. In reality, it was anything but that.

Rana said the walk from the shooting range to the village is when they move on from one podium finish and set their sights on another. “From the range, we walk because that gives us time to talk — there are a lot of people everywhere else. So we walk and talk,” Rana said.

They talk about Manu’s emotions, reflect on the highs and put it in perspective to the Tokyo lows, discuss the approach towards the next match — and there have been points when they have spoken nothing at all.

• Manu Bhaker reaches final, targets her third Olympic medal today
• Paris Olympics: Shooting delivers third medal for India as Swapnil Kusale strikes bronze
• Coach Jaspal Rana details how life-work balance helped Manu Bhaker win two Olympic medals

“Then I drop her at the Games Village and after that, there is no phone call unless there’s something urgent. She is her boss. And I am in my apartment here (outside the Village),” Rana said.

So poised has Manu been that she hasn’t shown any sense of urgency, outside the range or at it. And now, she finds herself within touching distance of an unimaginable Olympic treble.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.